Oh we did laugh! You know that feeling when you’re laughing until you’re breathless, you want to shut your eyes but you might miss something – that feeling that you know something even more hilarious is about to happen but you can’t quite work out what it is because you’re so convulsed, and then the unexpected appears which is even more hilarious… You know that feeling of being breathless, of tears streaming down your chops, and you’re uttering the most ridiculous noises, and just when the funny and ridiculous thing can’t get any funnier or more ridiculous – and then it does… Well that’s what we experienced on Friday night in Bleadon, the next village to us, and then I went again with someone different and was equally if not more hysterical. I’d missed some things on the first night because I was laughing so much, and I was anticipating the ridiculous and farcical and tittering hysterically in anticipation.
Yes, I was in the audience of the Bleadon Players latest show, ‘Cash on Delivery’ by Michael Cooney. The writer’s name rang a bell with me, and of course the author is the son of the brilliant comedy writer, Ray Cooney. The play was a masterpiece and it would take several pages to properly describe the complex series of events and scenes, but this is the blurb:
This riotous farce has all the ingredient’s for rib-tickling hilarity and offers a colourful selection of character roles. Eric Swan , aided by his uncle and unbeknown to his wife, has pocketed thousands of pounds through fraudulent DSS claims. When the lodger opens the door to the DSS Inspector (Department of Social Security), mayhem follows involving the lodger’s fiancée, an undertaker, a bereavement counsellor, a psychiatrist, his fiancée, and a rebellious washing machine!
It had all the classic elements of farce – and this is what Wikipedia says about this form of entertainment:
Farce is a comedy that entertains an audience through highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable situations. It’s also characterised by heavy use of physical humour, deliberate absurdity or nonsense, satire and parody. It makes mockery of real-life situations, people, events, and interactions with unlikely and humorous miscommunication, ludicrous, improbable, and exaggerated characters, and broadly stylised performances. Despite these absurd situations and characters, it generally maintains at least a slight degree of realism and narrative continuity in the context of irrational or ludicrous situations. Farces are often being set in one specific location where everything occurs.
As well as being breathless with laughter, and having had every one of my ribs thoroughly tickled, I was in awe of what this group of supremely talented amateur actors achieved. The complicated script, the timings, keeping a straight face as mayhem reigned, knowing which of the five doors (six counting a cupboard) to exit or enter through – not to mention the physical exertions of various characters, including Eric Swann hurling himself to the floor several times, people being shoved into cupboards, having doors slammed on them, changing costumes… I’m exhausted just remembering it!
The Players put on three shows a year, and no doubt they are already planning the next entertainment.
Here is a link: https://bleadon-players.co.uk/
I have no images from ‘Cash on Delivery’, so my featured image is from the Bleadon Players panto a couple of years ago, ‘Scrooge’.
Lois Elsden 